Pain

Today was painful.

My daughter lost a friend. My sweet little 13 year old lost one of her best friends in a freak accident. She has no concept of this idea, of grief. I have no idea of how to help her feel this and move through it.

So, we share the pain. We chat when she wants to. We pray. We hug a lot.

It hurts.

I told her today that when one of us hurts, we all hurt.  I wish she still couldn't understand that.

The first, The best, The only: ROGUE

I love RPGs.  They are, by far, my favorite type of video game, and the love started a long, long, long time ago (the 1980s).

Until recently, though, I could never remember the name of that very first PC game that started my love on dungeon exploration, weapon acquisition, and monster bashing.  I did a little wandering about the web, and I found it:  ROGUE.  Yes, yes!  I was so excited!  Here's the cover of the manual from EPYX Computer Software:

Doesn't it look exciting?!  In this game, you fight your way through level after level of dungeons, looking for armor and weapons to help you on your quest to find the Amulet of Yendor.  You can read Rogue's whole story at RougeLikeDevelopment.org where I found these pictures.  It's a fantastic journey of adventure and excitement! 

BTW - the actual screenshot looks like this:

I played this game for HOURS.  Days, even.  It was truly, truly AWESOME, and I thank you, Michael Toy, Glenn Wichman, and Ken Arnold for using the computers at UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkley to inspire a whole division of video games that have kept be happy for my whole entire life.

Thank you.

PS.  Want to see what it's like to play Rogue?  (sorta)  Try out the web-hosted Hexatron Rogue.  But, don't blame me if you get addicted.

Gasp! Buried Treasure!

When I was working on my degree and certification, I had to take a class on how to use a computer. (Family: have you stopped laughing yet? Ok, I'll go on.) One of the things that I had to do was create a website with a PowerPoint-based photo slide show.

Today, I found those photos on some old 3.5 disks! I thought they were lost. I give you now a quick (somewhat incomplete) peek at my life and family in photos, circa 2003.

Granny Weidler

Great-Grandma Hutchinson

Grandma and Grandpa Hutchinson

My Mom

Me

Me at age 3

Me in Kindergarten

Grandpa and Me, Sault Ste. Marie

Grandpa's 70th Birthday party

Me with Mom

Me with Mom and Dad


Me with Mom and matching perms
(what exactly were we thinking?!)

Wedding Day with my Jim!

The infamous Marker Boy

My lovely daughter in a jacuzzi tub.

Probably my all-time favorite photo of Jimmy, age 3.

Little Annie in Kindergarten after her first big hair cut.

Me and the yearbook kids from my student teaching

Me, 2003

...and a gracious good evening to you.

My dad says this ALL the time when he calls me on the phone. It's like his catch phrase or something. :)

I get to see him today (probably) because I bought him a present on our recent trip to Michigan. That's why I wasn't posting, BTW. No internet access for me on the trip until near the last day.

So what did I get him for a present?

Pop, Pickles, and Chocolate Sauce.

(Really?!)
(Yes, really.)

When one of us goes home to MI, we always buy pop, pickles, and chocolate sauce. Why? Because there are three things that we love that you can't get in VA.

Pop

Pickles

Chocolate Sauce

Yum!

The Dreaded Sleepover

Why is everyone so afraid of sleepovers?

...and I don't mean the kids, either. One time - just one! - have I ever had a kid ask to call dad and go home. I'm talking adults. What is it about sleepovers that frighten you?

I have found that these are the #1 easiest parties to give.

• There's no need for goodie bags (don't even get me started on those.)
• They're cheap.
• Kids love them.
• It's amazing just how many kids love either Lucky Charms or Cheerios Honey Nut cereal.
• Glow sticks can entertain them for hours. Literally -- HOURS.
• So can any action figures/Littlest Pet Shop toys
• Ditto for Legos, flashlights, lightsabers/Nerf guns, and BBQ chips

Our kids take turns getting a birthday party. We started doing this because we were poor, in college, and living on ramen noodles and hope. We continued it because now that we're slightly less poor, out of college, and living on canned soup and student loan bills, the kids can have either a really nice present every year or a great party.

Back to the sleepover: they love them. Ever since they were old enough to have one, they want them all the time. ALL THE TIME. There have been 3 this month. One while Jimmy was at camp, one while Annie was at camp, and now -yes, now- one for Jimmy's birthday. Which is today. You may now send him presents.

It never fails, though: parents always tell me I'm brave or they could never do it or ask me if I'm quite sure I'm stable since I seem so happy about being invaded by a pile of children for 14 whole hours. I'm not brave. You CAN do it. and Yes, I am stable, thank you so much for asking.

14 hours of sleepover:
Hour 1-2: scream hysterically as each new guest arrives. Tell each guest something ASTOUNDINGLY AMAZING. Guest who have already arrived are welcome to add, change, or embellish details. Watch cartoons/play video games AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS even though you're all mere inches from each other because you're so happy to be together that it's almost like you think it's a mirage and your friends will disappear the instant you're not in close physical contact with them.

Hour 3-4: Option a) eat voraciously everything that is set in front of you. Option b)claim an allergy to whatever is being served and instead make yourself a pb & j which you secretly feed to the dog when no one is looking, never mind the fact that said pb & j will cause the dog to lick its face for the entirety of hours 4 and 5 so it's not like you're being that sneaky - you are after all the only one who had peanut butter in the first place. Wait for it to get dark so you can go outside. Play with anything and everything you can find. Birthday party: Option a)Eat half a slice of cake Option b) eat a whole slice of cake, and then randomly finish off the other slices when you think no one's looking. Hey - you have to make up for that pb & j somehow, right? You're hungry!

Hour 5: Run around with glowsticks and flashlights. Get the hose because there's always one puppy pile that gets missed and there's always one kid who will step in it.

Hour 6-9: Laugh at the kid from hour five at random moments. Have a long extended committee meeting over which movies to watch. Make popcorn that some of you will eat, and most of you will feed to the dog to see how high she can jump and catch at the same time without knocking over the lamp. Fall asleep watching the movies.

Hour 10-13: Sleep. Sort of.

Hour 14: Eat afore-mentioned cereals and/or pancakes, bacon, sausage, hashbrowns, fruit, juice, milk, leftover dinner, dog food, toast, or whatever. Breakfast is, after all, THE #1-most-likely-to-bring-out-the-PICKIEST-eaters-ever meal of the day. Pack your stuff. Act surprised when host kid asks you to help pick up from last night, but say, "Sure, whatever!" and help out anyway because that's what kids do 99.5% of the time. Decide not to be that .5% kid because chances are you won't get asked back, and everyone likes a sleepover.

Ta-da! Done!

And, if you've done a good job as a parent and let your kid stay up until the wee hours of the morning and then given them sugar for breakfast, they will crash again in about 3 hours and the whole house will be nice and quiet.


You're welcome.


PS. Believe it or not, that was NOT satirical, but the honest truth of how sleepovers go around here. Party on, dude/man/bro/chick/whatever your catch phrase is.

PPS. Best overheard line of all time: Holy Snap, Dude!

Memories

Isn't it funny how a powerful memory can be triggered by something tiny? A sound, a smell, a jingle, an old photo...?

Every time I hear a mourning dove, suddenly I'm at G'ma and G'pa Carley's house. I can smell the water of the lake and hear the cuckoo clock, and I can see the canal out front. All from a soft coo of a bird.

Or, fire up a grill and throw some chicken on there, or give me sun-warm raspberries, and suddenly I'm out back with Grandpa Hutchinson and he's making chicken for us while I roll down the hill and raid the berry patch.

One of those moments happened to me at church Sunday morning. I was walking down the hall and glanced into the youth pastor's office. I saw this:

Suddenly I was a little girl again, and I wanted my daddy. This green suitcase, a bit beat up, made me miss him so bad!

We used to have those suitcases - a whole set of them. I remember that I loved how hard they were; they seemed practically indestructible. They had a silky lining, with little elastic pockets around the edges. And they smelled funny. They always smelled funny.

I haven't seen one of those suitcases in 20 years, probably.

I think I'll go call my Dad.

My Coral Cactus

Jimmy and the coral

My paternal grandmother loves cacti. She's very ill now; she has Alzheimer's. She has forgotten my generation - or rather - she thinks we're all very small.

The last time I spent a few days with her, she told me some great stories about my "Uncle George". Then she'd shake her head and say, "No, he's your grandpa, isn't he?" We had a good time, but I think what bothered me the most - more than her forgetfulness, which was expected - was that her cacti were disappearing. There weren't nearly as many as before. That made me sad. Those cacti were a big part of who she was to me when I was little.

Grandpa built his ships, and Grandma had all kinds of cacti. She had a cactus with flowers, one that was tall, one that was fat, a soft one, a super spiky one... all kinds, all shapes. I've loved them ever since. She said she liked them because they were "hard to kill". :)

Boy was she right! I have a coral cactus that I bought at Wal-mart (of all places), and I don't think I've watered it since Christmas. It's quite happy on my deck in the heat and humidity. It rains occasionally, so I guess that's all it needs. I stuck it out there once the cold evenings had passed. Before that, I had it sitting on an end table by a bay window so that it could get light and warmth. It sure is happy. It's even getting ready to blossom again!

Before I show you the current pictures, I want you to see how it looked when I bought it. My mom, Clara, took a picture of it for her photo hunt shortly after I had bought it. Here it is, with tiny flowers and all:

Isn't it cute?

It's a bit more rugged now, I'll admit, and I thought maybe I had figured out a way to kill a cactus. You see, it lost its purple almost entirely, and the green became spotty. Then, last week - boom! - Purple and flowers and new growth. Practically explosive! This is the second time it's grown (the first was shortly after I got it), and it's growing like crazy right now! Check it out:

All of the bumps and folds you see in these two pictures are new growth. The fold in the picture above began with the 1st growing cycle, and it is accelerating quickly in the second, with a matching fold on the far side now. The high bumps in the picture below are new this summer.

All of those bright purple ridges are flowering and will be producing new growth soon. I am so excited! I can't wait to see what shape my coral will take next.

Thanks, Grandma, for giving me (among other things) a love of cacti.

Softball Camp

This week, Annie has been going to softball camp. She's been wanting to try out for the school team in the spring, and we decided the best way for that to be possible was to get her some experience. We're also going to try to get her on a fall ball team.

This week she's learned a lot and also come to grips with the fact that she's got a lot more to learn and a lot of practice ahead of her if she is to have any hope of making the team in the spring. On the bright side, she seems to really be falling in love with the sport.

Keep your fingers crossed for her!

We survived!

Jimmy as General MacArthur

It's been a long. long weekend. Thursday morning, my little man started complaining of a headache. I pretty much ignored that because his first 10yr molar is coming in. Instead, I tossed him a tube of ambesol and told him to drink a glass of water.

By mid-day, his temperature had risen, and I sent him to bed. I took him to the pediatrician the next day after his temperature registered at 102.6. "It's just a virus," they said. "Keep an eye on him."

Ok. I took him home, gave him a corner of the couch, and a bottle of water, and waited
.

Saturday night, his aches turned into pains, and he couldn't really walk well or climb his ladder to bed. The pains seemed to be coming from his lower right side, and he miserably failed the "jump-up-and-down" test, so we went to the ER. Jim and I texted furiously the whole time and he kept me cheery in the face of not knowing what was going on with Jimmy.


The poked, prodded, hooked up an IV, checked vitals, drew blood, took urine, filled him with contrast, scanned, poked and prodded again. "It's just a virus," they said. "Keep an eye on him."

Ok. It's 2 AM on a Sunday and I have to be at church by 7:30/8. Sure. Why not.

Jimmy spent Sunday quarantined in Jim's office, and seemed to be getting better. Fever was down to 100.3 that morning, and his appetite was back. Abdominal pain was pretty much gone, and his spirits were high.


After church and lunch and naps, he said he felt much better and asked me to check his temperature. 103.7. Oh, good heavens. Took it again. 103.4. Jim told me it would be ok. Much muttering of "What do we do now?" ensued.

I did what any self-respecting, intelligent, mother of 2 older kids would do. I called my mommy. I told her the whole story. I did my best not to cry. (It sort of worked.) She told me it would be ok, and suggested that - since I'd tried everything else - I should put him in a tub of lukewarm water for 5 minutes and douse him, hair and all, then bundle him back up.

When the 5 minutes were done, Jim went up to get him out of the tub, then came down and said that he was a new kid. And he was! He was smiles and appetite again. He ate (a tiny) dinner and felt playful. I gave him one more dose of medicine for the fever and sent him to bed.

This morning, I handed him the thermometer and held my breath. 98.5. Hooray! We made it!

The mystery virus lost.

The Meadow, Part 2

Here are a few more photos for you from our trip to the meadow. I've included several of the kids' more experimental shots in this bunch. We took a lot of pictures. The small ones are Annie's and the larger ones are mine and Jimmy's. (Captions are for the picture above.)

"Purple grass, Mom?!?"

One of the many butterflies

Kinda hard to see it, but there's a brown and orange butterfly just above center on this picture.

Baby trees in the grass. This one was 3 inches tall.

This is the picture Annie was taking when I took her picture.

"Look! They're mating!"

Run-off track headed for the pond